Be Irrelevant

I've got a story I've been wanting to share for some time now. 

The man. The myth. The legend.

Last month, Shane Claiborne spoke at our small, insignificant school. He’s a guy who lives in community with the homeless people in his city, and actually literally lives with them. He looks totally different from most people we know, physically and spiritually, and doesn’t care about a lot of the stuff we care about.

He was the perfect speaker for our student body's "theme" that month: be bold. He talked to us about a variety of topics, but the most interesting piece of his presentation was the brief discussion he hosted following his talk.

During this time, there was an opportunity for us to ask Shane questions - nothing really seemed out of bounds at that point. So, after he spoke, one of the students at our school posed this question to Shane Claiborne:

“Do you think your lifestyle keeps you from being relevant and ministering to others?”

Wait, what!?

The question blew my mind.

We invited this guy who has dreads longer than my beard (which is saying something), who gives us the most vivid illustration of living in solidarity with the poor, and all we can think to ask him is, "Are you worried you're irrelevant?"

This, my friends, is a microcosm of what's wrong with what Greg Boyd calls the Bridezilla of Christ. But I digress.

I couldn’t believe that anyone would WANT Shane Claiborne to be “relevant” and care about the crap we care about. In choosing to live in solidarity with the poor, he has chosen to be relevant to those who could care less about relevancy as we understand it. He chooses to be Jesus with skin on, but what we want him to be is something more like a super "cool" hipster (who just happens to like Jesus).

This is absurd, my friends. Where have we gone wrong?

I can hear the objections now.

"But what about where Paul says 'become all things to all people?'"

I imagine this would be the biggest argument for some sense of so-called relevancy. So does this mean Shane Claiborne is wrong?

To answer that, I want to look at the life of another person who is going above and beyond in being a radical Christian: Katie Davis.

In case you haven't heard about this amazing woman, check out this video, which was made as an introduction to her book, Kisses from Katie.

And on the off chance that you aren't able to watch the video, but still want to know about Katie, here's an embarrassingly quick summary: after her senior year of high school, Katie took a mission trip to Uganda. Now, in her early 20s, she lives amidst the people of Uganda as the mother to fourteen Ugandan orphans.

That's some insane stuff, right there - which I suspect is exactly the sort of "stuff" Jesus is interested in. That's why we Christians feel so drawn toward the spirits of the Shane Claibornes or Katie Davises. We can't help but want to be like them.

But wait a second. We're talking about relevancy here. And these two people are the epitome of irrelevancy as far as we're concerned. One is a full-time homeless guy. The other is a full-time mother in Uganda. We can't relate to them. I mean, I know I can't. I have a home, and I'm most certainly not a mother.

So they must be doing it wrong... right?

They're failing in their calling to be "all things to all people."

Or are they?

What are we missing here? We know they're doing something right, but if we make them relevant, then these two wonderful people become just like the rest of us - boring, plain consumers on a mission to live the American dream - all for the sake of some misguided notion of relevancy.

What we're missing is this: we too often confuse relevancy with contextualization. Paul was all things to all people, but that was a hat-tip to becoming one with the culture he lived in, not one with the trends or popular ways of the world.

Relevancy deals with a fleeting moment - trends and popularity. Contextualization deals with culture - becoming all things to all people.

In his book, Viral, Leonard Sweet has this to say about culture:

Admittedly, the word "culture" is one of the most slippery terms used in the social sciences... When I refer to culture, I mean primarily the unvarnished vernacular of a place or period. In the 1960s, when a middle-class youth wanted to rebel, they grew beards and smashed stereos. When Amish youth wanted to protest... they shaved their beards and bought stereos. Culture shapes behavior and how we express our beliefs.

When I was in training to prepare for my time in the war-torn country of Sierra Leone, I was trained to contextualize, not to be relevant. I worked for weeks on learning the culture of the country, not what was popular or trendy at the time. I worked to understand the hearts of the people who lived there, not to understand the intricacies of soccer (their favorite sport).

And if I wanted to return to Freetown today, I could, because I was taught culture, not relevancy.

You see, being relevant is one of the biggest scams Satan has sold the 21st century Church (especially in the US). Millions of people have sold out to the whims of pop-culture (and yes, there's a difference) in the name of relevancy.

We say we're being relevant by immersing ourselves in The Bachelor or in Twilight or even (heaven forbid) The Hunger Games. We say we're trying to be relevant by obsessing over how we look or the latest fashion trends. We say we're trying to be obedient to being "all things to all people," but in the end, we simply look confused.

We have to stop pretending we don't enjoy these things, people. We like shows like The Bachelor and movies like The Hunger Games. We don't just watch them under some misguided guise of relevancy. We watch them because we enjoy them.

David Platt, author of Radical, recently interviewed Katie Davis. They discussed Katie's ministry, her heart, and her passion for the children she cares for. One of the most interesting questions that he asks Katie, though, is this: "Do you think what you're doing is radical?"

Unsurprisingly, Katie Davis said, "No."

You see, many spirits who would otherwise be radical have been subdued in the name of "relevancy." If those spirits had never been subdued, we wouldn’t even be talking about relevancy or even being radical, because what we call radical now is really just the basic way of life that Jesus calls us to. There’s nothing radical about that.

So let's make a pact. Let's stop pretending we don't enjoy these fads that we indulge. Let's stop the facade of relevancy (when we know we truly enjoy being popular, even if only for a moment). Let's stop the show.

Instead, let us be irrelevant. Let's engage our culture, but not its whims. Let's engage our people, but not their trends. Let's be genuine, loving, sacrificing people in the name of Love, but not simply because it will score us cool points with our friends.

Let's forget about relevancy and be irrelevant.

I suspect, in the shedding of our trendy wannabe-hipster skin, we'll see that what lies below is what we've been searching for all along.

... ... ...

Questions: Have you ever thought of the difference between relevancy and contextualization? How can we be less relevant and more radical? Who are some other radical Christians that inspire you to be more like Jesus?

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